Castaway (6 page)

‘Hey, what about Charles?’ said Darcy. ‘He’s a good bloke!’

‘Yeah, I thought of that, but he works for Customs now. He was here looking for illegal boats the day …’ Sam’s voice faltered, but they knew he meant the day that Mac was hurt so badly. He was suddenly a lot more interested in Holly, and scratched her ears thoroughly.

‘Yes,’ said Tess hurriedly filling in the silence. ‘He couldn’t do anything, not when he’s working for them. He would
have
to report it. We need to think of something else.’ She frowned. ‘Mum’s got this friend who belongs to Amnesty International. You know, that mob who try and get people out of prison when they’re locked up because of politics, not because they’re
criminals or anything? Maybe we could ask her about it.’

Darcy disagreed. ‘Wanda’s a total fruit-loop. She’d want to hold a cake stall to raise money and then picket Parliament House and hug everyone in sight.’

George laughed out loud, but Tess nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re right. She’s a bit nutty. But they won’t all be like Wanda. It was on the news again last night, about the refugees who landed last week. There’s some lawyer in town who’s representing them. Maybe we could talk to him?’

Just then they heard Jaz calling them to come in and eat while the food was still hot.

‘Can we go and meet this kid after lunch?’ asked Tess.

‘Yeah – no one goes to the hay shed much at the moment. We’re not feeding any buffaloes in the yards or anything,’ said Sam.

He gave Holly a final pat, and they turned to go back up to the house.

Lunch was delicious. Aunty Lou and Jaz had reheated the food from the market stalls, and the spicy aromas of tom yum soup, green chicken curry, juicy beef satays and fragrant jasmine rice filled the dining room. Even Old Jock, who usually didn’t go in for that ‘fancy foreign muck’, as he called it, tried some, and decided the beef satays were almost civilised food.

Jaz talked animatedly about what she’d seen down at the Point, and Uncle Mungo boomed his opinions just as loudly as ever about illegal immigrants until he
and Aunty Lou almost had a heated argument across the table. George and Darcy competed for who could eat the most the fastest until Darcy had a choking fit and Aunty Lou had to stop arguing with Uncle Mungo and administer a life-saving thump to her son’s back.

When lunch was over, Uncle Mungo and Old Jock went off to check some watering points and troughs in the floodplain paddock in preparation for moving the buffaloes down there. It hadn’t rained since Mac’s accident, so Uncle Mungo had decided they should go ahead with his plans for moving the stock. After giving many instructions to Tess and Darcy, and many breath-squeezing hugs to Sam and George, Aunty Lou finally waved goodbye and drove off back to town.

As they watched the car disappear around a bend in the road, Jaz said, ‘What are you guys going to do now? Lou brought the mail bag out and your next term’s assignments are in it, so I’m going to go through your new work. And I’ve got a few letters to read, so I might disappear over to my room for a couple of hours. Mungo and Jock won’t be back till dinner time. Sing out if you need me, okay?’

They went back inside the house. ‘Let’s take some of the rice and curry up to him,’ said Sam. ‘He might like that.’

The child was well hidden as usual, and it wasn’t until
Sam called out softly that a little face showed around the corner of a box. He looked alarmed when two extra heads appeared over the platform, but relaxed when it was obvious that Tess and Darcy were children too. They all sat down on the hay bales and stared at each other. The child studied Darcy and Tess cautiously, then suddenly rushed over to Tess and grabbed her hand, talking excitedly.

‘Hey, Tess, I think he likes you!’ said George with great amusement.

The child touched Tess’s hair, which was pinned back with a decorative clip and hung in a plait down her back. He pointed at Tess, then pointed at himself several times, and at Tess’s hair.

Tess stared into the child’s face, and then suddenly laughed out loud. ‘You dorks, this kid’s not a boy, he’s a
girl
!’

Sam, George and Darcy stared. ‘Are you sure?’ said Sam, turning red. ‘No wonder he nearly decked me when I tried to help him take his clothes off!’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Tess, looking intently at the child. She pointed to herself and said, ‘Tess,’ and then named each of the others in turn.

The child’s face lit up in understanding, and she touched herself on the chest and said clearly, ‘Kalila’. She smiled at them, and sat close to Tess as she repeated
each of their names until she had it right. ‘Sem, Chorch, Duh-ssy, Tess.’ Pointing to herself again she said very clearly, ‘Kah-lee-lah,’ and then, to everyone’s absolute amazement, Kalila said, ‘I – I speak small English.’

Sam’s mouth fell open, and George’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ said George. ‘It would have been a bit easier!’

‘I sorry. I frighten everything. Forget words.’ She paused for a moment, looking wistful, and then went on haltingly: ‘My father say not speak English if not safe. I not know is safe. But safe now.’ And she smiled at them, particularly at Tess. They all started to ask questions at once, but Sam held his hands up. ‘Whoa, whoa, one at a time, and slowly. You heard her say her English isn’t that great.’ He went first.

‘Okay, where do you come from?’

‘I belong Afghanistan. But come from Pakistan, refugee camp. Stay Pakistan little while, then run away.’

‘How did you get here?’ asked George. ‘Were you in that boat that got wrecked on the reef?’

‘Boat, yes. Come in boat, from Indo – Indoneesi … Four boat. Bad men chase us, shoot my boat, all people in water. People save me. I not see father.’ And then the tears fell unchecked.

Tess put her arms around her and hugged her till she stopped sobbing. The child took a deep breath and
went on. ‘Very great storm, break boat, people all die. Only me.’ She sniffed.

Tess frowned. ‘That news we saw the other night said that two boats came ashore near Darwin. Maybe her parents are on those boats?’

‘Wow, I wonder what happened. What does she mean, “bad men come after us”?’ said Darcy.

‘Dunno, but it sounds pretty terrible,’ said Sam.

Kalila was listening intently, trying to understand the conversation. ‘Bad men want kill father. Chase us. Shoot boat. Break boat. People all fall in water, and bad men go away. I not know my father alive.’

Tess came up with the idea of moving Kalila into her room. ‘She can’t stay up here all the time – it’s too uncomfortable, and it’s too hard to get her over to the loo without someone noticing. How about she stays in my room with me until we work out what to do? No one’s going to go in there, and that way we can get food to her and she can use the bathroom more easily. Jaz sleeps over in her cottage, and Old Jock’s in the single men’s quarters. Uncle Mungo’s out most of the day, and he wouldn’t come into my room anyway.’

Sam looked very nervous at the idea, but agreed. It was definitely better than keeping her hidden in the
loft. George went ahead to make sure that the coast was clear, and they hurried Kalila inside the house, and into Tess’s room. It had two single beds with horse patterned bedspreads, a large wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. There were pictures of horses all over the walls – Tess always stayed here when she came out to the station.

Kalila stood in the centre of the room, tears rolling down her cheeks. She hugged the battered atlas to her chest, having retrieved it from where she had hidden it between two hay bales.

‘That explains why she cries so much,’ said George, shaking his head. ‘She’s a girl!’

‘Why do you reckon she hangs on to that atlas?’ asked Darcy. ‘It can’t be any good to her, it looks like it’s falling apart.’ He pointed at the atlas.

Kalila took a step backwards and shook her head, her eyes wide and worried. ‘Belong father! Not take book! Belong father!’

‘There you go, Darce. It’s her dad’s book. No wonder she wants to keep it,’ Sam said.

They explained as best they could to Kalila that she was to stay in the room, out of sight, and that they would bring her food and take her to the bathroom when it was safe. In the meantime they would try to figure out what to do.

A door slammed, and the loud voice of Uncle Mungo boomed through the house. Kalila leapt up in alarm and dived under the bed.

‘Boy, this is
not
going to be easy,’ said Tess. She knelt on the floor and smiled at Kalila. ‘Wait here,’ she said, and patted the air with her hands. Kalila nodded, and shrank further under the bed.

At dinner, Uncle Mungo announced that they would be moving the first paddock of buffaloes off the high country and down onto the flood plain in two days’ time. The plains had dried out enough for the animals to go back out there, and the grass was tall and ready to be grazed. ‘We’ll shoe some of the horses tomorrow, and then move the buffaloes the next day. We’ll shift the cows and calves first. You guys gunna give us a hand?’

George, Tess and Darcy enthusiastically agreed, but Sam kept eating, his eyes fixed on his plate.
Dad would be here doing this
, he thought savagely,
if it wasn’t for you
…

Uncle Mungo talked about his old station in the Kimberley. ‘Practically carved it outta the bush, we did. It was two days’ ride from the town until we put the road in, never saw a soul fer weeks on end. The
house was just a lean-to, with a few sheets of tin fer the roof. Lucky we never had a cyclone – woulda blown the lot away in one go. Just yer dad ’n’ me, an’ a coupla blackfellers to help. He was just a kid, about fifteen, I think. Those were the days, livin’ rough, workin’ hard, and no choppers to do it for us. Horse-mustered everything, stayed out for months sleepin’ in swags on the ground …’ Old Jock nodded in approval, his eyes misty with nostalgia.

Sam had been brooding on the other side of the table. He fixed his uncle with a cold stare and said, ‘Well, Dad won’t be riding any horses for a while, will he?’ and then he pushed his chair back from the table and stalked out of the room.

Everyone else sat there a bit stunned, and Old Jock said, ‘Bin outta sorts since Mac went south, that boy. Guess he’s just real worried, eh?’

But Uncle Mungo looked shattered, and he didn’t say any more. Later, after the dishes were done and everyone had gone to bed, there was a gentle knock on Sam’s door, and George, Tess and Darcy crowded in and sat on the spare bed. Darcy had Horrible draped around his neck, to give her an airing out of the pillowcase.

‘Are you okay, Sam?’ George asked. ‘You practically bit his head off out there. It’s not Uncle Mungo’s fault –’

Sam interrupted his brother savagely. ‘It is
so
his fault. I told you, if it wasn’t for him, Dad would be okay.’

‘But, Sam, I thought he lifted the tree off your dad. It was an
accident
,’ said Tess.

‘No it wasn’t. Well, it was an accident that shouldn’t have happened. When we were at your house, the night before we came home I heard Uncle Mungo crying like a big sook and telling your mum that it was all his fault, that he said he could lift it off in one go, that if they’d cut it up like Dad wanted to, it wouldn’t have happened. He said himself it was
his fault
!’

The others sat back in silence. Darcy stroked Horrible, and Tess and George looked helpless.

Tess kicked the leg of the bed and said, by way of changing the subject, ‘Our dad’s left us, you know?’

George stared at her open-mouthed, while Darcy just kept stroking the snake, letting it wind itself around his shoulders. Sam looked grim and nodded.

‘Mum thinks we don’t know. I think she’s too upset to tell us. But I heard them arguing one night last week, and then Dad was gone the next day. Mum says it’s just a business trip, but I heard him say he wasn’t coming back.’ She kept looking at the leg of the bed, and kept gently kicking it.

‘I know,’ said Sam. ‘I heard her tell Uncle Mungo that night we were at your place.’

Tess looked up at Sam. ‘He’ll come back again,’ she said. ‘I know he will!’ Her eyes filled suddenly with bright tears and she gave the leg of the bed a savage kick.

The next morning Sam woke up feeling groggy and tired because he hadn’t slept properly. He yawned his way into the kitchen, where Uncle Mungo was standing at the sink with a big pannikin of tea. He looked as if he hadn’t slept very well, either.

‘Mornin’, Sam,’ he said.

Sam grunted at him, something that sounded a bit like ‘Good morning’ – if you used your imagination.

‘I think we need to have a yarn, you and me,’ said Uncle Mungo. Just then Old Jock stomped in, followed
by Darcy and Tess, who had been out feeding the chooks with him. ‘Well, maybe later then,’ said Uncle Mungo, and busied himself getting some breakfast.

Tess smuggled some food into her room for Kalila while the others went out and caught the horses they would ride the next day. Uncle Mungo and Old Jock would each drive a bull catcher while the others rode horses around the mob. The first buffaloes they were moving were quiet cows and calves, used to being handled. Uncle Mungo said they’d wait for Marty and his boys to come out before tackling the bulls and the less quiet buffaloes.

Tess was waiting at the horse paddock fence as the boys walked up with four horses. George was leading Gidget, a little bay mare, and Tess’s mare Shona, a pretty buckskin with a black mane and tail. Darcy followed with Toby, a chestnut gelding with a broad white blaze, and Sam brought up the rear with Havelock, the skewbald gelding he would ride instead of his grey mare Holly, whose foal was still too young to be left on his own. Holly followed Sam, and her little foal trotted along beside his mother.

‘He’s so gorgeous!’ sighed Tess. ‘I can’t wait till he’s ready to start breaking in!’ She climbed into the paddock and stroked the handsome dark brown foal, who nickered and frisked around. ‘He’s the image of
Saxon, isn’t he? He has the same white hooves and everything.’ Tess had waited impatiently for the foal’s birth, as everyone had agreed that this one would be hers.

‘What are you gunna call him?’ asked George.

‘I don’t know yet. I’m going to wait and see what his personality’s like first.’

‘I wish Sabre hadn’t hurt his leg,’ moaned Darcy. He looked back across the paddock at Saxon, who was grazing slowly up behind the other horses. ‘You don’t reckon …?’

The others just laughed at him. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding, Darce. You on Saxon again? Once was enough, wasn’t it?’ The last time Darcy had tried to ride the big brown stallion – when no one was looking – he’d ended up with a broken arm, and got them all grounded as well. Saxon was Sarah’s horse, and the only other person he allowed on his back was Sam.

‘Toby’ll be fine,’ Sam told him. ‘He’s smart enough around buffalo.’

They led the horses through the gate and down to the hay shed, where Uncle Mungo and Jock were waiting with the shoeing gear. Uncle Mungo turned out to be a top class farrier, something Sam hated to admit. He rasped the horses’ hooves and tacked their shoes on quickly and efficiently and never once pricked a hoof.
When the shoeing was finished, they took the horses to the yards so they would be easy to catch and saddle the next morning, and gave them some hay.

Uncle Mungo came over to the yard, a halter in his hand. ‘Nice lot of horses you got here,’ he said. ‘Good and quiet to shoe as well.’ He rubbed his beard for a moment, and then said, ‘Ah, Sam, give us a hand with Sabre, will ya? I need ter check if his stitches are ready to come out.’ He turned to the others. ‘You lot go and tell Jaz we’ll be up fer smoko shortly, would ya?’

Sam sullenly accompanied his uncle to the horse paddock. Sabre was close by, and Sam whistled him up easily enough, then slipped the halter over the gelding’s head.

‘Ya got a good way with horses, Sam. Now, let’s have a look at that leg …’ Uncle Mungo bent to examine the foreleg while Sam held Sabre’s head and soothed him quietly. ‘Needs a couple more days, I reckon,’ said Uncle Mungo. He straightened up and unbuckled the halter. They watched as the big gelding wandered off, head down in the grass.

‘Somethin’ ya want ter say to me, Sam?’

‘Nope.’

‘’Cause I get the feelin’ yer not happy with me bein’ ’ere. I know yer worried about yer dad, but we just have to manage things till he gets back. I’m not tryin’ ter take
his place or nothin’. You tell me if I make mistakes or do things different t’ how Mac would do ’em, okay?’

‘Yep.’ Sam stared up the paddock at the horses. Uncle Mungo looked sideways at him for a second or two, then let out an exasperated sigh and said, ‘May as well get back for smoko then.’

And they trudged back to the homestead in an uncomfortable silence.

Later, Uncle Mungo and Old Jock went over to the machinery shed to get the bull catchers ready and have a last look around the fence line before they mustered the buffaloes into their new paddock the next day. Sam, George and Darcy sat at the dining table playing a game while Tess quietly took some lunch in to Kalila.

Jaz put a pile of letters on the other end of the table, and sat down with a notebook and a small dictionary. ‘Hey, guys,’ she smiled at them. ‘Thought I’d have a change of scenery.’ She took a letter out of its envelope and opened a small book and placed it on the table beside her. ‘My grandmother writes to me every few months, but I need a dictionary to read what she says.’ She smoothed out a folded page of closely written squiggles, and put her glasses on.

‘Why – does she use really big words or something?’
said George. ‘You’re our teacher. Aren’t you supposed to know everything?’

Jaz laughed at him. ‘You’re a ratbag, George. No, my grandmother is Iranian, and she writes to me in Persian. I can speak it, but I’m not that good at reading it. Look –’ and she held out the page for them to see. It was covered in a neat but completely strange set of markings that looked nothing like the letters of the English alphabet.

‘Wow, you can
read
this, Jazzy?’ Sam was amazed that the strange shapes made any sense at all. ‘I never knew you could speak Persian, or that you had an Iranian grandmother. Were you born there too?’

‘No,’ said Jaz. ‘My parents left Iran during the revolution. I was born in Melbourne. My name is actually Yasmin – I get Jaz for short. My dad was a doctor, but when he came to Australia, the only job he could get was being a cleaner. That’s why they wanted me to study medicine. They’re not very happy that I’ve taken time off to do something else for a while. I think my grandmother is writing to tell me to go back to school too.’ She bent her head over the letter, occasionally looking up a word in the dictionary.

When she finished, she announced, ‘I think I’ll go into town after the muster. My grandmother asked me to send her something. I have to renew my driver’s
licence too, so I might do a quick run in and out, seeing as we can’t do any schoolwork for a while.’

As soon as Jaz had returned to her quarters, they went to Tess’s bedroom. Tess and Kalila were seated on the bed, and Kalila was brushing Tess’s long dark hair with a contented look on her face.

‘Kalila told me that her father cut her hair short and dressed her to look like a boy when they escaped,’ said Tess. ‘She used to have long hair like mine.’

‘Well, it sure worked,’ said George. ‘But he should have told her not to cry so much. Dead giveaway.’

Aunty Lou had brought the last couple of days’ newspapers out with her when she dropped off Tess and Darcy, and now Sam carried them in to the bedroom. ‘We might be able to find the name of that lawyer you saw on tv, the one helping refugees.’ Kalila watched as they each searched through a newspaper.

Sam found it first and read the article aloud:

There was a photograph of people staring through a fence topped with rolls of barbed wire.

Then Darcy read out a piece he’d found:

‘Whoa! That’s scary.’

Involuntarily, they all looked at Kalila, imagining her in a prison waiting to be sent back to where she’d come from. Kalila looked back at them gravely.

‘I think we have to talk to this lawyer,’ said Sam.

‘He’s not gunna listen to kids,’ said George.

‘Yeah, and lawyers cost heaps of money,’ Darcy added.

‘Not always,’ said Tess. ‘Sometimes they work for free. In special cases. This is a special case. Isn’t it?’ she added a little uncertainly.

‘Of course it is,’ said Sam. ‘Anyway, he’s already helping refugees, so he should be able to help another one.’

Tess thought for a moment. ‘I guess we should give him as much information as we can, like, I dunno, Kalila’s parents’ names, how old she is, where she’s from, that sort of thing?’

It wasn’t easy explaining to Kalila what they were going to do. At first she was worried about ‘the bad men’ finding her, but eventually she relaxed and decided to trust them. Her father’s name was Hasheem Tariq. She was from Kandahar in Afghanistan, and she was eleven years old.

‘Wow, she’s older than she looks!’ said George. ‘She’s so little I thought she was only about nine.’

‘What was that lawyer’s name again?’ Sam flipped
through the paper till he found the article. ‘Spiros O’Reilly. Funny kind of name …’ He shrugged and went to the office to look up the phone book. George and Darcy followed him.

They found an entry for Spiros O’Reilly in the Yellow Pages under ‘Lawyers’.
Spiros O’Reilly QC, Deakin Chambers, Smith Street, Darwin
. There was a private address for him too.

‘You won’t get him on the weekend,’ said Darcy.

‘I might at his home number.’

The phone seemed to ring forever. Just as Sam was about to hang up, a groggy voice answered: ‘Hello-o-o.’

‘Is that Spiros O’Reilly QC?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Um, my name’s Sam McAllister, and I need to talk to you.’

‘Well, if you’re in trouble you need to speak to a lawyer first, not me. And it’s Sunday, by the way –’

‘No wait, please. I need to talk to you. It’s about the refugees.’

‘Are you from the newspaper? I’ve already spoken to you people.’

‘No I’m not. It’s just that, well, we found one.’

‘Found what? Look, can we not talk in riddles? I’ve had a long day. And I’m in court tomorrow. I really don’t have time for this.’

‘My brother and I found a refugee on the beach, and we need you to help her.’

‘You what? Look, who are you? Is this some kind of stupid joke?’

‘No, it’s not a joke, Mr O’Reilly. We saw you on tv the other night, and in the paper, and you’re helping the refugees. A boat washed up in the storm, and there was a little girl on the beach near our place. She doesn’t speak much English, and she says she’s from Afghanistan.’

‘How about you put me on to your father or mother.’

‘I can’t. Dad had an accident and he and Mum had to go to Adelaide so he could have an operation. There’s just our uncle here, and he thinks all refugees should be shot on sight. We don’t want her to get locked up like those kids on tv.’

There was silence at the other end for a moment. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Mr O’Reilly. It’s all true. We just want to help her.’

‘Well, the Immigration people have to be notified first. They’ll take the child into custody, and then we can make submissions on her behalf. When did you say you found her?’

‘Three days ago – but you can’t call them! They’ll just lock her up, and she doesn’t know where her parents are or anything!’

‘Well, Sam – it was Sam, wasn’t it? – I’m afraid we have to do things according to the law. There are ways of doing things and we have to follow them.’

‘But it didn’t stop those other kids from being locked up for years, why should this be any different? She’s lost her parents, and she’s all alone.’

‘It’s just the way things have to be done. She has to be taken into custody first, and then we start working on her case. Where are you exactly?’

Sam hung up without answering. He looked at the others. ‘He’s not much use. He says we have to give her to the Immigration people, and then he can start working on her case or something. She’ll just end up in the prison, like those other kids we saw.’

‘Lucky you didn’t tell him where she is, then,’ said Darcy. ‘They’d be out like a shot, probably.’

They went back to Tess’s room and told her about the phone call.

‘I still think you need to talk to him, Sam. We can’t do this by ourselves. Maybe you should call him again tomorrow, and make him understand.’

‘I think I need to see him. Dad always reckons it’s better to discuss important things face to face, not over the phone. Jaz is going into town after the muster, maybe I can go with her?’